BFF Update: Boundaries and how to be yourself in a BPD relationship?

[DearBFF]

So after giving me a death stare and not speaking to me at a mutual friend's party I got a text message seemingly out of nowhere.  Read more about that here... .

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=283890.msg12679782#msg12679782

I'd love to get general feedback and boundary suggestions, and sort of a general framework of other's experiences on moving forward with a BPD even knowing they could be gone at any moment.  Both in the figurative, they an drop you from their life, and the literal, they can take their life.  I don't feel like I used to as in a waiting for the other shoe to drop position, but I also don't feel super close to her as I am there for her, but I know I cannot count on her to be there for me.

Less than a week from the text mentioned above I got a text a few days ago asking if I could watch her daughter for a few hours.  Our schedule was free that afternoon and my daughter said she would love to see her friend.  So I agreed, and BFF dropped off her daughter with us.  We all hugged, and the girls were excited to see each other.  She showed me her cutting scars which are actually healing up (the pic she texted was a few weeks old).  It may sound odd, but I was glad to see them so I could see that they are not deep and when she told me why she started again I didn't validate the behavior, but I completely understood why she went back to the habit.  When she returned the girls played while she caught me up on her life... .

After her mother's texts to me talking about a possible intervention/DCF/etc apparently her mother moved onto another old friend of BFF's that she hasn't spoken to in over a year because she moved away.  The friend recently moved back to town and BFF's mom got in touch with the same story she gave me and the friend was so worried she called BFF even though they hadn't talked in forever, and she was (understandably) upset that she's been ignored since moving back to town.  BFF assured her she was fine, to ignore her mother, and invited her to hang out.  "Boyfriend" showed up and all 3 spent the night having a good time hanging out.  BFF and her friend had a chat about "boyfriend" not being her boyfriend even though she was in love with him, and in the following week BFF finds out that "boyfriend" and old friend have decided to start dating.  As if she wasn't already upset at her mom for butting into her life she now blames her for ruining the "boyfriend" relationship possibility and now old friend has been ejected for "stealing" the non-boyfriend.

Of course as expected this leads BFF to sign up for a dating profile and has now been dating "new boyfriend" for 6 weeks.  During this time is when she began cutting again as her mother and stepfather, who are supposed to also be in therapy themselves, are handling the entire situation rather badly.  BFF rents her current place from her mother and informed her about something that needed to be fixed, but instead of trying to set up a time to get someone to look at it she stopped by and apparently struck BFF in the face; police were called but BFF did not want to press charges.  Her mother and stepfather have been frustrated because they do not understand her behavior and feel she is not doing anything to better her life.  They have asked her to go back to school saying they will pay, but she isn't interested.  Yet, instead of respecting her choice her stepfather decides to try to pressure her into it by text bombing her every few minutes for 24 hours about how she'll never amount to anything and her daughter is going to suffer because of it, etc.  This is the point at which she starts cutting after she repeatedly asks him to stop and tells him that what he is doing is the kind of thing that drives people to suicide.  I think she came very close in those few weeks that all of this was happening and that is worrying.  She has always said she would never now since she has her daughter, but I seriously doubt that now.  She says she is getting better/stronger, but I thought she was before all this and now I don't know if she ever will be; I guess there will be a lot of false starts.

As far as the advice her therapist gave her about our relationship after which she was told to cut off all contact, she says now she sees that he was only hearing one side, he never heard my side and she doesn't think he can make that decision off of one sided information.  So she is now choosing to go against him and keep me in her life.  The entire time she was telling me this I was confused, as she never mentioned he was only hearing her side, so she had to be saying stuff that would give someone the impression that our relationship was unhealthy and I was a bad person.  Yet, she never inserted herself in what she said, only that she feels he was wrong.  It was odd... .but I didn't say anything.

Now, I'm in this kind of weird place... .we are seemingly back on.  I'm glad to have her in my life, I always will, and my daughter's life as even after everything my daughter climbed up in her lap and snuggled her and wanted to play with her because she loves me so much.  I do not want to take that from her, but I want to protect her where I can.  For instance BFF talked about a sleepover, and I do not want to do that.  I didn't mention it at the time as she brought it up with the girls and I didn't want to get into it with them possibly bursting into tears about it.  I talked to my daughter about it after they left and she understands, she said it makes her sad, but she gets it because she remembers the other sleepovers and how none of them ended well.  I just have to tell BFF this now and hope she understands.  It's not fair to me or my daughter to look forward to something like that, when we have history that says they always turn out badly.  It sucks because I want to say yes, but yes to a girl's night (where boyfriends/etc do not show up and join the sleepover), where she actually hangs out with us instead of texts a "boyfriend" all night, and where the day of fun she always promises the next morning actually happens.  Thing is that history tells me that is a long shot, so I don't want to hang my hat on that one just yet.

Also, I realized yesterday while I tried a little bit I am still in my mode of keeping my mouth shut most of the time.  I need to be more myself, and I need her to allow me to do that, but I don't know if she will; which may mean that if she doesn't I may have to leave and I don't want to.  She says she hates to "talk" but sometimes it's not that I want to TALK, I just want her to listen.  Sometimes it's not that I want to make her feel bad that she hurt us, or call her out on something she could have done better, I just need her to know how it feels.  The thing is I honestly feel like, she doesn't want to know... .

I've resigned myself to the kind of relationship we will have at minimum and as expected she did not ask me about my life, or my daughter's or as from a catch up about us.  She laid hers all out there, but I barely got a word in about anything going on with me, and at that it was like "oh I just bought these snacks at the store, have some." LOL!  It would be great to have a friend who called me up and said "Hey how is your day?  What are you up to?  Do you want to get together?"  I know that for the foreseeable future, that will NOT be her.  I'm ok with that, which I know may sound weird to people, but as long as I'm not bending over backwards to BE with her or RESCUE her, and I can enjoy my time with her I want to be there.  If one day I do get a phone call that she is gone from this Earth, I want to know I did everything I could to enjoy the time that we had together, for my daughter as well; I just want to shield her from the bad bits as much as possible.  I think this time I will do more leaving when things I don't like are going on and hopefully that will instill that when she is behaving well I am there, when she isn't I'm a phone call away if she needs some support, but I won't rush to RESCUE her.

She did invite me to help her with some divorce paperwork and I said yes at first not realizing I have to take my daughter to one of her activities, so then I had to say I could not.  I felt bad declining as it is not that I didn't want to go, but good not rearranging my schedule for her.  She understood and we discussed a later time, but it wasn't possible for that night.  I said the next night worked for me and she said she could call me after her divorce meeting which is in the area, then we can get together either to celebrate or cry depending on how it goes.  I'm good with that, and I hope she calls, but I won't hold my breath; I know better.

Any ideas/feedback are greatly welcomed!  Thank you all! 

[Turkish]

Now, I'm in this kind of weird place... .we are seemingly back on.  I'm glad to have her in my life, I always will, and my daughter's life as even after everything my daughter climbed up in her lap and snuggled her and wanted to play with her because she loves me so much.  I do not want to take that from her, but I want to protect her where I can.  For instance BFF talked about a sleepover, and I do not want to do that.  I didn't mention it at the time as she brought it up with the girls and I didn't want to get into it with them possibly bursting into tears about it.  I talked to my daughter about it after they left and she understands, she said it makes her sad, but she gets it because she remembers the other sleepovers and how none of them ended well.  I just have to tell BFF this now and hope she understands.  It's not fair to me or my daughter to look forward to something like that, when we have history that says they always turn out badly.  It sucks because I want to say yes, but yes to a girl's night (where boyfriends/etc do not show up and join the sleepover), where she actually hangs out with us instead of texts a "boyfriend" all night, and where the day of fun she always promises the next morning actually happens.  Thing is that history tells me that is a long shot, so I don't want to hang my hat on that one just yet.

Also, I realized yesterday while I tried a little bit I am still in my mode of keeping my mouth shut most of the time.  I need to be more myself, and I need her to allow me to do that, but I don't know if she will; which may mean that if she doesn't I may have to leave and I don't want to.  She says she hates to "talk" but sometimes it's not that I want to TALK, I just want her to listen.  Sometimes it's not that I want to make her feel bad that she hurt us, or call her out on something she could have done better, I just need her to know how it feels.  The thing is I honestly feel like, she doesn't want to know... .

I've resigned myself to the kind of relationship we will have at minimum and as expected she did not ask me about my life, or my daughter's or as from a catch up about us.  She laid hers all out there, but I barely got a word in about anything going on with me, and at that it was like "oh I just bought these snacks at the store, have some." LOL!  It would be great to have a friend who called me up and said "Hey how is your day?  What are you up to?  Do you want to get together?"  I know that for the foreseeable future, that will NOT be her.  I'm ok with that, which I know may sound weird to people, but as long as I'm not bending over backwards to BE with her or RESCUE her, and I can enjoy my time with her I want to be there.  If one day I do get a phone call that she is gone from this Earth, I want to know I did everything I could to enjoy the time that we had together, for my daughter as well; I just want to shield her from the bad bits as much as possible.  I think this time I will do more leaving when things I don't like are going on and hopefully that will instill that when she is behaving well I am there, when she isn't I'm a phone call away if she needs some support, but I won't rush to RESCUE her.

Hi DBFF,

It sounds like you have a lot of conflicting feelings about being yourself, yet also still having a tendency to do for her what she should be doing for herself. While you certainly can be kind, based upon her sensitivities, is it your job to protect her from herself? Lastly, are you really ok with that? It sounds like you are processing this, and that is good, but I still get a sense of imbalance here. In triangulation (and it should be noted that not all triangulation is bad), you two seem to have been alternating between Persecutor and Victim, switching roles with each other.

Turkish

[DearBFF]

Hi, Turkish and thank you for your response!  :-)

Personally, I do not have any conflict about being myself and am more myself than I have ever been.  The trouble comes in with her, since her BPD behavior started about 6 months into being friends which through me for a loop.  I'm sure many others can relate, where you wonder what you've done wrong, because it seems they are always blaming you for something.  Then I know I was too attached as the separations hurt immensely, as well as her painting me black and thinking I did things I did not.  Once I learned of BPD and started putting my head/heart back in order, things got way better for me as I could step outside whatever situation was going on at the moment and see it with compassion instead of being upset/angry which does me no good and has almost no effect on her whatsoever.  It is just that with that I was just learning, and in my learning I did some things wrong like trying not to say thing that upset her to avoid her triggers.  Now that I'm in a really good place and am practicing non-attachment I am trying to remember how to get myself back to the place where I say whatever I'm thinking.  Oddly enough something I've realized is that I don't need to say everything I originally thought I did.

At first I would be like, when she comes back I need to say, "xyz" then I realize after the fact that part of that is out of anger, or part of that is just unnecessary and would do no good to either of us so I process, let it go and move on.  I've said almost everything I had wanted to as of now save 1 thing I planned to say this weekend when we got some quiet time alone (if that still happens, one never knows).  As of now we have hung out twice, the first was the girls playing and then we all played cards a bit before she left after catching me up on her life.  The next was just after her divorce went through and we talked about just about everything, which was great, and I even caught her up on some of my life stuff.  I didn't feel the same reserve I used to about withholding not to anger her, but I still worry I may.

I just am wondering is it something I ease back into, does it just feel like you are unsure until you part and then you may realize later you didn't say something you truly wanted to?

(Again, I am mostly talking about in the past over 3 months ago now, so I am talking about moving forward and getting away from that.)

As for imbalance, I am unaware that a BPD relationship could be balanced; as I feel that would be expecting something of her she is not capable of and would only set me up for disappointment.  I can't expect her to react like someone without uBPD traits, I cannot expect her to return a phone call/text when she has ocd and forgets 5 minutes after she glances at her phone, nor can I expect her to know things she does not like how she is perceived by others because it is unfortunately something she is still learning.

I can't expect her to show up all the time and I actually plan for her to not show up.  I know if she says "I'll let you know" that if I haven't heard from her a few hours prior she's not coming, and I'm not surprised when I call later to say hi that she doesn't answer.  Sometimes she just falls off the grid for a few hours or days.  I have spoken to her about this in the past and she understands that if she calls out of the blue if we did not have concrete plans I will not drop it all to go do whatever.  I have dealt with this most recently but being sure to mention any little thing I have planned, even tentatively so that we choose a different more convenient day.  So if she says, we could get together this day, I mention everything I have going on.  If that doesn't work out she mentions another day and maybe when she'll be in the area.  I tell her if that works out and that I have no plans, which means I will just be at the house during the time she may stop by not doing anything important so she is welcome to visit.  This way my plans aren't effected I can go about whatever I planned on doing at home, whether she shows up or not.

What is ok with me is accepting who she is at this moment in time and moving forward with that in mind.  If there is something I don't like I will try to fix it in anyway I can or simply put a stop to whatever is causing it.  For instance in the past my daughter and I would sleep over and it always ended badly for one reason or another; yet she mentioned us all having a sleepover at the first get together but by the second (mostly waiting to discuss it not in front of the girls) I told her I wasn't comfortable with the girls having sleepovers at her house just yet.  She didn't make a big deal about it and said she'd still like it if I slept over sometime, and I agreed, as she works most days and I do school most days with my munchkin.  We like talking at night and plan on playing some cards when we get together, so I'm more than ok with that.

As for the triangulation I am unsure at this point, although I am familiar with the roles.  I feel I have done a decent job taking myself out it.  She has and probably always will play the victim, even when it is not her intention; it's how she sees the world which is my understanding of most BPDs.  I did feel very much a victim of her behavior previously, but now that I have a handle on it I don't take it personally so if she's having a bad day, that's her bad day to have I don't have to have one too.   

I am curious about the not bad triangulation... .?

Not sure if that make sense, ... .please tell me if I didn't respond to something.

Thanks again!